Hyperdimension Neptunia: Mushrooms are Actually Pretty Gross
by The Definitive Receiver
Summary: In Lowee's greatest city lies a small shop of fungus. Mushrooms and truffles are sold, and the store's proprietor, Mr. Faeriering, earns his living off his life's work. It's a humble career, but out there exists the fungus of legend. With this in mind, Faeriering sets out on his quest to discover this legendary truffle, and perhaps win the favor of his nation's patron Goddess?
1. Chapter 1

The **C**hanterelle overflows with charisma in a body of gold. The **H**orn of plenty is symbolic of abundance, for both better and worse. The **E**nokitake is what some would call common, but those who say that know not of his many suits. Last is the **T**uber, whose stubbornness has born aggravation in many, but also admiration in some. It is from these four that my name, Chet, is derived. And yes, I do hate my parents for it.

* * *

I am a humble cultivator of mushrooms born to the rural south of our serene nation of Lowee. That is, I farm them for sale in town. It is not the most glamorous of professions, no, but it is preferable to have to wash your hands of manure before every meal than it is to not eat.

I work from the dusk 'til the dawn, and from dawn 'til dusk to keep myself eating properly. It's a management job more than anything else. I plan out my daily schedule, making time to eat and sleep properly while working as much as I can. I manage my expenses for equipment and cost of labor, and on labor I have to balance out the most skilled of the local mercenaries to how badly in need of protection I am in any particular outing.

What? Do you think a hired sword is a little over the top for a mushroom hunt? Well, sometimes I need to raid a dungeon to get the biggest bang for my buck. Mind, when I say I raid dungeons, I do not mean for treasure, though I won't pass up a good score if'n I happen to find such a payout. That's right, I dungeoneer not for mob drops, but for mob droppings!

I wasn't kidding about having to wash my hands of manure every day, no. It's a well-known fact that the quality of dogoo manure (with consideration toward the cultivation of fungus) increases with their level. And if dogoo manure is sufficient to grow grocery store quality shrooms, imagine the quality of the quality of the mushrooms I'd have growing on my plot if I rock up a dungeon and nick the shit of a dragon?

And more importantly, think of the money I'll make out of the deal!

Mercenaries are satisfied with taking my share of the loot for their pay. What they don't know is that I'll make twice what they take in from clearing out a dungeon by sitting on the sidelines and taking home a literal load of crap.

Hooray for me!

It should be noted, however, that there is, as of yet, no reliable studies which point to the quality of mob manure against the level of the mob aside from dogoos and other low level mobs. Also, the data collected from low level mobs other than dogoos have proven less than entirely consistent. Not that it matters much to me, tho. My prices won't change just because science doesn't have my back yet. It's all about appearances, and believe it or not people will actually buy mushrooms based on what kind of shit it sprouted out of.

I'm not complaining. I've been able to make a killing by risking my life and the lives of various foolhardy mercs in dungeon after dungeon just to sell mushrooms to people who haven't the faintest clue how my mushrooms are superior to the dime-store brand. I've even been able to afford a full renovation job on my store here. What was once just a four footed tent in the middle of the farmers' market I've now built up to be a proper shop in Lowee's capital city.

I now stand in the center of a still humble shop floor, flanked on all sides by walls of taupe. Jars of mushrooms displayed on shelves of similarly painted hard wood. I've set four long tables stood in the middle of the floor meant to serve the same function. The cash register (probably my favorite part of the shop) sits atop a wooden counter top which juts out of the wall.

"Mr. Faeriering?" Speaking of the register, Lamy seems to be calling me out. She's the one I've got working the register. "Mr. Faeriering, are you still there?" Incidentally, Faeriering happens to be my surname. It's another source of my sourness, but it's one I can't entirely blame on my parents.

"No, La-La. I'm having a bit of an introspective. Is there anything you need?" Admittedly, I'm a bit young to be having these little internal monologues, but at twenty-one I realize that my accumulated wealth has a long time it needs to last along the road to my retirement.

"Oh, it can wait until you're done." Said little Lamy, who's gotten very well adjusted to the work environment here.

"Very good." Now, where was I? I think I was talking about Lamy, yes?"

Alrighty then. Now, Lamy, or La-La as I call her at work, is just another school girl from one of the… I'll say that it's one of the 7/10 high schools here, neither the best nor the worst. Her dream, apparently, is to explore dungeons and fight monsters and all that jazz. I think the whole notion is batty, but I sometimes take her with me when I explore some of the lower level dungeons. The fact that she hasn't run home scared like a mouse within the clear predatory view of a Bengal tiger tells me that she's at least sort of serious about adventuring.

I'm still not convinced that she knows all of that she could of her dreams, but she's capable enough I suppose. I certainly wouldn't want anything to happen to her after she finally comes of age to explore this vast world of ours, regardless of whether she really decides to become an adventurer or not.

I look at her now, that soft brown vest wrapped so well on her torso so pleasing to the eyes. Her soft features like a pillow to the face, soothing and warm from the slight widow's peak on her forehead, to her long black locks which perfectly frame her heart shaped face and hide away her ears, to her flat lower half which leads to six segmented, exoskeletal legs and her two stinger tails. An exotic beauty in no mistake.

"Mr. Faeriering…," Lamy's weak utterance instantly awoke me from the beginnings of my newest fantasy to be. My eye's snapped to her face, the redness of which she so futilely attempted to cover with one hand. "You were staring at my bottom half again, weren't you?"

When you act as you do now, m'love, I can't help but wonder which half I'm more interested in. "Don't worry, girl. I wouldn't dare touch a girl before she comes of age." Lowee is very strict when it comes to her laws concerning such things. Go figure. "Speaking of, how old are you again?" I didn't actually say that, of course. I'd be too afraid of scaring off my favorite employee. She saves me the cost of hiring a mercenary when I take her along with me for a dungeon run.

"I really wish you wouldn't joke around like that, Mr. Faeriering." She pouted, her face like molten iron.

"Wasn't joking, m'love. What kind of man would I be if I lusted after a schoolgirl?" I say that, and instantly I feel the chill of the hundreds of thousands of kindred spirits wishing ill upon me for condemning them. "Don't worry about it. I won't lay a hand on you."

"I know." She said, curtly.

High school girls are such a curious breed, but that's a discussion for another day. Now is the time for business. "La-La, how have sales been today?" I don't know why I even asked that when I've been here all day.

"It's been slow, Sir. People don't spend much money on mushrooms in the middle of the Spring Anime Season." Said Lamy, who I know must've had her DVR set before she went to work. "Blade Warriors is playing right now. I'm pretty sure that all my friends are probably watching it right now…." She puts on a dutiful face, yet that only makes her look more pitiful.

Ah, whatever. I'm feeling merciful today. "La-La, do you want an extension on your break?" I ask her, just to remedy that horribly pitiful look she's giving me.

"Can I really?" She asked me, positively sparkling.

"You've an hour and a half. That should give you more than enough time to watch the end of Blade Warriors and… and whatever else you want to watch."

Lamy's face lit up with a lovely excitement. "Thank you, Mr. Faeriering!" With that, she skittered off. Her six scorpion legs carrying her off with at a breakneck pace. "I'll get back to the register right after Bamboo Braver!" She said, her voice fading as the distance between her legs and the break room shortened like a stick of beef jerky in front in the mouth of my bitch neighbor's yappy dog.

It's a pity I only have her working four days out of the week. Lamy's my favorite. "Now if she'd only call me Mr. Chet, she'd be like my dream girl…. In a few years I mean."

"That'ssss a dangerous thing to say, Mr. Faeriering." And then I jumped out of my shoes.

"Who!?" I leapt a good couple of feet in the direction opposite of the voice which had sent chills up my spine.

With an unabashedly satisfied and toothy smile was Dr. Boomslang, a local medicine woman of sorts. I say medicine woman and not outright doctor of medicine because of her use of herbal medications in most of her prescription. Consequently, she is the biggest source of revenue for my shop here, both directly through her purchases, as well as her many patients who pass here on her recommendation. Her contributions to my wallet happen to be one of the only reasons I haven't put a restraining order on her yet because this lady IS CREEPY AS HELL.

"Could you stop ninja-ing around my place of business? It's hard to maintain a respectable front when you scare me out of my pants." I complained to her as my heart threatened to beat its way out of my chest.

"I'm no ninja, Mr. Faeriering. I'm a doctor." She says, smiling with all her thirty-something canines bared, and the thin slits she calls pupils focused squarely on me. "Don't tell me you're sscared of me."

"I will tell you that I'm scared of you because you're freakin' scary!" I step back and away from her.

With every step I take back, she takes one forward. Together, we do a sort of tangled dance at a distance across my sales floor. I manage to shuffle around until a table sits between me and her. The pale green of her scleral only glowed to me as would a predator to its prey. Her movements appeared slow and her body swayed like the leaves of a banana tree in the wind to mask her, but her true speed was given away by the subtle swaying of her brassy bob and by the much more noticeable sways of the tails of her white lab coat.

"You wear the white of an angel, but only black could ever suit you." I hissed as my enemy made her way towards me.

"So you're saying I'd look better in black? Well…, that's awfully forward of you Mr. Faeriering, but I'll take what I wear into consideration next time I visit."

"Don't take what I say and make it sound like a pickup line!" I'm raising my voice now. I try not to let myself get to that point, but you'd never know that from the way me and Boomslang go at it. "You've bought your stock for this month, why are you even here? I had the local clergy bless this place just to keep you away!"

"You really know how to make a girl feel special, Mr. Faeriering." She giggles in a nefarious way that makes it decidedly uncute. "I didn't come here without reason, my jumpy, nervous love."

"Don't call me 'love' when I have no love for you!" And that's something I'd shout from the rooftops. "You know you're never to show your face here on the week days."

"Why are you so mean when I only came to give you an update on our little dream?"

With that, my anxiety towards her vanished. My eyes snapped to lock with her gaze, and my ears blocked off all sound save for that of Boomslang's wretched voice. "What do you mean?"

"You know exactly what I'm talking about." She knows that she has my undivided attention now, and she takes a pause just to see if I'll pop from anxiety. "That mythical little fungus told of in legend. Stories as old as history itself tell of a mushroom, now thought either to be extinct or never to have existed in the first place."

I'm starting to get excited now. "A mushroom whose legend finds root in the tales of the creation of Leanbox. In tales of when that nation was but a loose collection of various matriarchal tribes. In a time before Leanbox or Lastation or Planeptune or Lowee."

"Before even the lands of Tari are believed to have been." Boomslang was every bit as into this as I am. "A mushroom that when eaten would then augment the growth of a woman's bosom!"

"_Tuber leanboxes tuberum_!" I shouted.

"The legendary boing truffle!" Her enthusiasm rivaled mine.

In the heat of the moment, and probably with a bit of poor judgment, I embraced Boomslang in my arms. I was overcome by lust for the money and the power which this discovery could entail. Normally my skin would crawl if I even came close to Boomslang's person, but now, in my excitement I held her in my arms, and she held me in hers.

I'm sure you must be wondering, why all this fuss over a single truffle? Well this truffle's legend really speaks for itself, doesn't it? A fungus that could boost the breast size of any woman who eats it. Personally, I like 'em bigger, but this is about more than just my taste in women. This is about nationalism, and I have lived in the nation of Lowee long enough to know that if I were to present the _Tuber leanboxes tuberum_ to our Goddess, Lady White Heart, a lifetime of wealth and ease awaits me!

"And then we can get married!" Said Boomslang, whose proposition had slightly more standing in reality than Lady Blanc's dreams of fitting one of Lady Vert's bras.

"If we can find that truffle, I guess anything's possible! Ha ha!" Who cares, really? I can get married to as many women as I want once I find that mushroom.

"Mr. Faeriering?" Unmistakably, that was Lamy's voice calling me. Was she done watching her anime already? "I heard yelling, are you alright?" Innocently, Lamy peeked in from the hall into the sales floor to see Boomslang and I in the middle of our embrace.

Now, this would be fine if I were hoding anyone else, but Lamy and Boomslang have a bit of an issue with each other. It's for the same reason that I don't let Boomslang in the shop on the weekdays. I think they called it an issue of instinct or something to that effect.

None of that information particularly mattered to me on its own, but as Lamy's tails got into optimal striking position, and as Boomslang bared her many teeth and hissed with her elongated and forked human tongue extended, I started to worry about how my shop would look once the smoke clears. Together the two of them produced the most unpleasant sound I've heard since the last time they met each other here in my shop. Even the screaming I could tolerate if not for the mess that is to come.

"SCcREeeeEHHHKKKKK!"

That one broke a few jars.


	2. Chapter 2

Looking in the mirror…, I see my face. I'm not sure what else I was expecting to see. It's a mirror.

"Mr. Faeriering, if you're just about finished preening yourself, I think it would be best to leave as soon as we can." I could hear Boomslang mocking me from just outside my bedroom door.

Honestly, it worries me quite a bit to have her so close to where the naughty things happen. I just have to keep reminding myself that I'm safe so long as the door stays locked between us, but when I finally do open it, I'll have to make a line for the outside like a rabbit escaping from an animal testing facility for caffeine pills.

Ignoring her for the moment, I decide to take one last look in the mirror. Possibly I'll reassess what it is I'm doing with my life. Whatever I'm doing, I'm certainly dressed for it. I'm all decked out in my adventuring gear, and 'round these parts our adventuring gear doubles as our formal attire: that is if the ceremony you mean to attend is Jean Paul Gaultier's wedding to Kefka Palazzo.

Since this is Lowee, I thought it best to dress in keeping with the oriental theme, and what that means is I'm wearing fancy Japanese pants. And they are fancy. I'm wearing to kimonos right now, the stiff outer kimono is made from a blend of cotton and a faux silk fabric dyed a deep dark blue. The lines starting from the neck down the arms are squarely creased because I find that rounded look a bit haphazard looking. The white under kimono is called the nagajuban, it is much looser and less restrictive than the more professional looking, yet stiff and uncomfortable outer kimono would be on its own. Together, these two are tucked into a very wide pair of trousers called hakama. Mine are a dark grey color because it does not clash too severely with the blue of my kimono because, as a businessman, I have to worry about my appearances even in the thick of battle. Because of the great width afforded to me by the hakama allows them to be creased without suffering a casualty in comfort. Over the kimono is a large fitting jacket called the haori. The material here is almost entirely indigo dyed silk, of which I am very proud.

To tell the truth, when I first commissioned this outfit to be made, I wanted to have a crest bearing the image of a mushroom emblazoned on the back of my haori. An artist sketch of that however revealed to me that mushrooms look incredibly phallic. Scrapping that idea, I decided to have the character "kin" or "金" painted in the crest's place in a sort of pyramid of seven characters piled on top of one another in order of descending size. It's not meant to be symbolic, but it is meant to reaffirm what should have already been learned: I want nothing more out of life than a big ass pile of gold. There are some other wants of mine that I live my life aiming for, but I'm not sure what the Japanese character would be for "monster girl concubine".

Well, the matter of my clothes has been dealt with. All that's left is to primp my hai-eeeeeeeey! "Ow! My hair!" I felt something or someone, probably Boomslang, jerk hard at my ponytail.

"I swear, know actually harpies – actual harpies – that don't preen for as long as you do." Said Boomslang, her grip on my hair as soft and as gentle as an eighteen wheeled lorry with a jet engine. "I have to admit it though, your hair is fabulous."

Boomslang grips tight on my ponytail, using all three feet of my beautiful ravenous mane as a leash with which to – OW! "Quit pulling on it, you cold-blooded monster!"

"Sweet talking will get you everywhere, Faerie boy~3!" At that moment I heard the swift "Schwing!" of a knife blade unfolding, immediately succeeded by the feeling of something long and thin pressing down against where my pony tail met my head. "Is it because of your hair that you take so long to get ready? Maybe I should do us all a favor and cut out the tumor before it proves malignant."

"Don't call my hair a tumor!" She has no idea the amount of work I've put into maintaining the glossy sheen I have today. "If you harm a single hair on my head, I'll never speak to you again!"

Boomslang let go of my hair, and I fell forward to my face.

"Omph!" That was the sound of me grunting while my open mouth slammed against the floor.

"Oh! You're such a ninny when it comes to your hair." She chided me. "And I thought you'd look cute with short hair, too…."

"You don't give haircuts with serrated knives!" I shouted at her, coddling my ponytail in my arms so that I knew it would be safe.

"Should I use an X-Acto knife next time?" She asked, not missing a beat.

"Stay away from me with your knives!" I tried to sound imposing, but I was only whimpering in the end.

Whoosh! Went the sound of much heavier steel cutting through the air. In my grief born of hair troubles, I couldn't find it in me to care for what I heard. Conversely, Boomslang immediately recognized the sound of swinging steel as one of imminent danger. Kicking me hard to the far left of my own bedroom, she made sure that I was safe before she herself rolled to my room's left side wall. It was no sooner than when she started her roll that a massive two-edged sword of at least six feet in length from the tip of its blade to the bottom of its pommel swung in a clumsy arc through the top of my door frame, tore through my ceiling, bisected my bed before finally terminating its arc in my floor where about two feet of the blade had sheathed in the bit of floor just below where my bed once stood. Bits of dirt, dry wall, and wood had flown everywhere. Most pressingly, THAT SHIT GOT IN MY HAIR!

Holding on tight to the hilt of the ridiculous sword was Lamy, whose dreadful gaze was locked firmly onto Boomslang. Her human upper body was decked in a brown leather tunic and plates of anodized Ocean Devil scales covering her elbows, shoulders, and forearms. A larger piece, probably formed by the melding of many separate scales together, was mounted over her left breast to protect her heart. Boomslang met Lamy's frightful visage with one of her own, all teeth displayed and her knife meant solely for Lamy at this point.

"You two should quit flirting and hurry it up." Said Lamy, with a menacing aside glance.

"What we as adults do is of no concern to children like you." Boomslang met Lamy's threatening stance with her own. "Now, are you going to be a good little child, or do you want to find out how many times I can cut you before you can even pull that sword out of the floor?"

Gritting her teeth, and with one arm Lamy ripped her sword out from the earth and swung the blade again in our direction and bursting through the left side of my door frame and connected bit of wall with the broad end of her sword. "Zero." She hissed, entirely confident in her ability to take on Boomslang again.

The two of them had more than just their natural weapons to hand this time. This time they were raring to fight with steel. My bedroom was in shambles, my bed was in two, but what irked me most of all was that MY HAIR WAS COVERED IN WOOD SPLINTERS AND BITS OF SHEETROCK!

"You two…." I stood up, my poor disheveled hair falling limp in my arms. "THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE!"

* * *

I'm not entirely sure what happened after that, but around an hour later I regained my senses enough to register that Boomslang, Lamy and I were all still waiting in my home, Boomslang and Lamy both sat in seiza style in front of me (which was particularly impressive on the part of Lamy who had to do so with six legs), and in my hand was my katana in its sheath like an angry teacher's hickory yardstick.

"AND THE NEXT TIME EITHER OF YOU LITTLE WENCHES GETS SHIT IN MY HAIR LIKE BEFORE, YOU'LL BE TAKING ALL 73 cm OF MY SHEATH UP YOUR ASSES, AND I'VE ONLY GOT ONE SHEATH, SO EITHER YOU TWO TAKE TURNS, OR ONE OF YOU GETS THE TASTE OF STEEL UP YOUR BUM!" I'm screaming apparently, so maybe that analogy about teacher's whipping sticks was entirely appropriate. "Okay, I sort lost it there. What were we doing?"

"I was listening to your sexy rage voice." Said Boomslang, looking like she's ready for a night to remember.

Slightly revolted by the bad doctor, I turned my attention towards my cutie pie shop keeper, Lamy, who fought back the tears which had built up around her eyes. "Youwere arguing, and stuff, so I came in and saw how close you two were getting, and I got mad because I thought you liked me better, so when I saw the way you two were flirting, and I got mad, and…." Lamy was too preoccupied with the sputtering out of sorrowful nonsense to make any coherent statements.

What am I going to do with these two…?

"I'm not sure what is in you creatures that you show such drastic shifts in temperament around one another, but this shit has to end!" I stamped my foot. "We three are going on an expedition to the untamed wilderness of Leanbox, but there's no way we'll find the _Tuber leanboxer tuberum _if you two keep trying to kill each other every hour on the hour!"

Boomslang, without showing any attempt to remedy the aching of my nerves, raised her hand to catch my attention. "Question: You and I are both adults, aren't we? Why do we need this little girl around to bother us?"

Because I don't trust you not try something weird when my defenses are down. "I've taken La-La out on expeditions more perilous than this one. She's strong enough to chop down entire trees in one swing, and the experience will be good for her." Also, I don't trust you not to try something weird when my defenses are down.

"That's right!" Said Lamy, who was probably trying her best to resist the urge to stick out her tongue out at Boomslang. "Mr. Faeriering and I can hand ourselves. You can slither back to whatever hole you live in!"

"I have as big a stake in this as Faeriering, you thing." Boomslang snaps right back at her. "I've invested my time, money, and research into this production, and I am not about to let you take away my man!" Boomslang, I think you started one sentence and finished an entirely different one there.

"Enough!" I shouted, finally. "You two will listen to me!"

* * *

I honestly wonder if the three of us will even get anything done on this trip.


	3. Chapter 3

The two of them have been sizing each other up since the second we set across the border to Leanbox, Lamy and Boomslang. Lamy's twin scorpion tails make occasional brief and sudden convulsions as if she means to resist the urge to draw first blood. Opposite her, Boomslang predatory eyes would sometimes jump from the open rear view of our horsefly drawn carriage to Lamy and back in the time it would take me to draw half an inch of my sword's blade from my scabbard. Neither of them said a word to each other since we left Lowee's territory, yet the tension in our cab was nearly enough to weight down the carriage and bury the wheels into the dirt.

Lamy was especially uncomfortable as her large lower half required all sitting space on the right side of our cab be reserved for her, and even then she experienced some difficulties cramming into the small space with her two tails just barely managing to fit under the ceiling. Boomslang and I sat on the cab's left side with Boomslang to my right resting an elbow on the small rear door which would come up to my waist if I stood up. To my left was Lamy's right tail, the stinger of which stayed within whispering distance of my eardrum because she could not comfortably keep to her end, as much space as she took.

I am currently regretting my frugality concerning our mode of transport.

"I'm sorry if I'm making you uncomfortable, Mr. Faeriering." Said Lamy, red-faced and sorrowful as she faced out the rear with shut eyes. "This wouldn't be a problem if I weren't so big..."

I didn't have to look at Boomslang to know that now was her time to jump in and say something horrible. Not going to allow that, I grabbed hold of my scabbard which hung by my belt on my left side to dissuade any notion that hurtful words were appropriate at this time.

"You don't have anything to be sorry for, La-La." I spoke up, seeing as how Boomslang wasn't going to say anything that could be considered even remotely nice. "You just take up a little more room than us. That's all."

"If someone wasn't so tight pursed with our travel money, maybe we could have ridden in something with a little more space for this baggage." Boomslang cursed both Lamy and I without using either of our names or even reference to Lamy's personhood.

Boomslang's foulness irked me even more than was normal for us. I had to speak up or let myself grow even angrier. "Well at least nothing's broken, which is more than I can say for my bedroom!"

And so it be by fate's decree, or by the goddesses' whims, both of the wooden wheels to the carriage's right side snapped. The cab fell, the right wall exploded into wooden slivers upon contact with the ground, and the three of us all met the ground with Lamy and I tumbling out where the right side wall once was. Boomslang fell as the rear door on which she rested her elbow flung open, causing her to fall with her abdomen meeting the door frame, knocking the wind clean out of her and leaving her to slide down to the dirt, breathless and stunned.

My face was imprinted onto the dirt and my legs were caught up in a mess with Lamy's tails. Disoriented, I forced myself to my feet. Once my senses had returned to me, I set free my hair from the strip of blue ribbon which restrained my beautiful mane to ponytail form. My hair free, I combed through my raven locks with my fingers. The wooden bits which dared sully head of hair. I was lucky today, what bits had gotten stuck onto me were easy enough to purge, and only dirt in its most powdery form reached my follicles. Reaching for the comb which I kept on my person at all times, and for my aerosol can of Head of Flowers, I righted the wrongs which fate bestowed unto me. Though it did take time, my hair was done right once more, and once more I tied back my ponytail.

"Fear not everyone, my hair has been saved!" I announced.

"Good for you, Mr. Faeriering…." Said Lamy, who paid me a dull expression along with Boomslang as the two of them carried our carriage driver out from the wreckage.

Our driver, Zr. Ahmed Chang, hung limp from his elbows as the girls dragged its pale grey body from its seat on the front of the carriage's cab. The only one outside, Zr. Chang probably took the worst fall of the four of us. Its grey pallor made it difficult for my untrained eyes to discern the bruised. His huge, chrome, pupiless eyes sat on his face like the parted half shells of a sunflower seed on the upturned boiled egg which was its face and head. Those eyes stared unblinkingly into the sky, for it had no eye lids with which to blink. Its proportions were completely foreign compared to mine or Boomslang's. Its body was only barely larger than its head, and pitiful arms would not be able to sit a hat there without some sort of assistance, and his legs matched the proportions of his arms. Though its body was nude, there were no visible sex organs to its body – Zr. Chang had the anatomy of a Barbie doll concerning genitals. There was no mouth to Zr. Chang that I could see. No mouth, no nostrils, no visible ears or exterior tympanic membrane that I had seen I other men and women. Zr. Chang's biology was so **alien** to me that I cannot even comprehend how to check for its signs of life.

"/\/\/\/\/\/\" It groaned, finally.

"Thank goodness…." Lamy exhaled, deeply relieved.

"Chang's got some serious bruising, maybe even a concussion." Still a doctor despite her eccentricities, Boomslang had been examining Zr. Chang since laying it down. "I can't tend to it in the middle of nowhere. We need to get to the nearest hospital, or at least a bed. We need ice, water, and we need to keep him awake. I doubt he'll go comatose, but I don't want to risk it."

By Blanc's A-Cups, Boomslang's actually being serious. I wouldn't believe it if I weren't here to see it, and even now it feels a bit surreal to hear her talk and not sound completely deprived.

Looking dead at me with the most serious expression I've ever seen of her, Boomslang off into the far horizon at a thin tower of smoke reaching up above the trees from probably a mile off. It was too contained to be wildfire.

"I noticed that right before the carriage broke. It's probably a ways away, but if there's a village or settlement where that smoke is, it's better than nothing." She said, already deciding that I would be the one to venture into the woods. "I'll do the best I can for Chang, and Lamy will stay here in case there's any trouble."

I looked over at Lamy, whose role in Boomslang's plan appeared to be as new to her as mine was to me. Though unsure, Lamy nodded at me to affirm her participation.

"That's settled. You don't have to run, you'll only exhaust yourself, but you have to leave now." Boomslang ordered, surprising me to no end.

"Be… Be careful. Both of you." I told them, turning around and hoping that I would not lose my way in the woods.

"Be careful, Mr. Faeriering!" Shouted Lamy, to whom my back was already turned.

I won't lie. I was worried. Worried for myself, worried for the girls, worried for Chang, but most of all I was worried about my hair. Long have I realized the risks posed on my beautiful black follicles every day I wake, but the fact remains that my hair faces more threat now, here in the middle of the woods, than ever before. I am tempted to just carry my hair in front of me and with my hands restrain its every sway to avoid even the smallest chance of my long, luscious locks getting caught in the branches of a tree, or in the teeth of an unruly creature. However, I know that to deprive the world of the sways and bounces which my hair produces with every step in my stride would be an injustice to the degree that the only acceptable punishment would have to be a prolonged and tortured death.

This is the awesome burden which I have come to bear on my scalp for you, world. It is an incredibly sexy and well maintained burden, but a burned is a burden still. Even now, as I run through the heavy woods on orders to find a source of smoke that might well just be a thoughtlessly abandon campfire which Boomslang and I have mistook for a sign of civilization, my task is one of incredible gravity, yet I am unwavering. At all costs, I will protect my godly fields of onyx for the sake of all that is – Actually, why am I running through the woods?

I was so caught up with my hairdo, beauteous as it is, that I've lost sight of my goal. If my sole purpose was to protect my hair, then the best route to take is obviously to stay the hell away from this place, yet here I am.

I stop walking to collect thoughts – thoughts other than those of my stylin' ponytail – and I am genuinely unable to remember why it is that I'm out running in the woods in the middle of nowhere. Boomslang and I were on a hunt for the Boing Truffle, and I recruited Lamy to back us up because she needs the experience and her wages are far cheaper than those of any mercenary. I'm in the woods alone and confused now, so something had to have gone awry. I just had no idea what.

Looking back at the way I came, I thought to myself, _I should just go back_. If my task was of any real importance, then I definitely would not have forgotten it so totally.

"I was probably just running away from Boomslang." I said, my thoughts having vocalized themselves.

Now that all of that mess was settled, I took one step back in the vague direction from which I came. It was only one step that I took, but when I felt the resistance of a taught wire under my sandal as my foot met the ground, I knew that I was in for some trouble.

"Oh, no." I had just stepped on a trip wire.

Instantly, a wave of bone chilling fright slapped the back of my neck and reverberated throughout the whole of my being. I stood with hesitation to breathe while my sandal pressed down on the trap. In truth, I could be considered lucky to a degree. Had my foot caught under the trap and pulled it up, the trap would have triggered before my notice. Now, I at least had some time to think. Because my foot was on top of the wire, whatever mechanism it was meant to trigger would not do so until the wire snapped back into place. Probably, anyways. In truth, the trap might still trigger like this, and the delay is only meant to frighten my already agitated nerves. I can only hope that my first guess of the nature of this wire trap is true, and that I still had time to act. Still, I had no idea from where this trap would spring. Would a toothy bear trap like vice come close in on me from two sides? Would a volley of arrows shoot out from some a nearby tree? Would spikes fall from branches above and impale me with extreme prejudice? I had no idea, but my time was short.

Not knowing how much time I had left act, I made a jump for it.

No. Literally, I jumped. I leapt forward, hearing the tripwire snap in to place behind me, which then lead to an audible crack and more snapping. Then came the downward whoosh of something large and heavy falling from the heavens straight to the ground. I saw my shadow darken beneath me. Without looking up, that told me all I needed to know. It was a deadfall, and it was massive.

I jumped again, this time into a roll as the deadfall's shadow only grew larger and darker until BOOM! The trap had fallen on to the patch of dirt I had been standing on just a second ago. A massive pillar of stone and wood bound together by vines and a pale blue adhesive substance sheathed itself into the dirt like my sword into its scabbard. I could only marvel at the sheer enormity of the pillar which I had just avoided being flattened under as I sat on my ass on the dirt, coddling my ponytail in my arms.

As a very general rule, a deadfall trap should be weigh to equal at least thrice that of its intended target, but because size and weight are not always the best indicators of hit point value, deadfall traps here in Gamindustri are designed with the equation (target defense*deadfall material damage value)/10 = deadfall weight in kilograms. The trap here was easily three times the size of me, standing at just under 180cm, and though I do not know how to calculate the damage value of a deadfall using multiple materials, it certainly weighed enough to displace a whole foot of earth. Why anyone would use such a trap in a forest whose creatures level in the twenty/thirty range baffles me.

I should just count my lucky stars that I managed to avoid that at all. Getting my ass off the ground, my objective for the moment was to get the hell away.

* * *

Wait…, what are these three red dots on my chest?


	4. Chapter 4

A laser sight is a sort of add-on to most handguns or rifles that emit visible-light laser beams parallel to the barrel of the gun to which it is attached (that is, attached to the gun, but not necessarily the barrel). Working at even extended distances, the laser emitted appears as a small red dot on your target of choice. Because the beam runs parallel from the barrel, that small red dot offers great targeting support for those who either don't trust their rifle's built-in sights, or when shooting from the hip. Keep in mind, laser sights aren't usually built to include bullet drop as a factor, so your aim might not be as keen as you'd expect when using one of these bad boys.

Energy based weapons don't suffer quite so much from bullet drop, so laser sights on actual laser guns tend to be a much more formidable combination. I'm sure that must seem like a totally irrelevant thing to bring up, but as I lay on my face with a patch of skin on my back burnt black like 'Splosion Man ran up and took a hard shit on my prone form, and as nine red dots remain pinned to my face from three directions like I'm Rudolf the Red Nosed Reindeer with achne problems, it certainly seems relevant.

If I had to guess, whomever it was that shot me must have used a plasma caster type rifle. I can tell because the pain from the burned bit of the skin on my back feels like someone poured volatile acid on my skin, whereas more common laser beams would feel like there someone threw a speared a hot iron at me.

Despite the crippling pain I was now made to endure, I could hear the slow approach of footsteps coming towards me. They weren't particularly heavy, so my assailants were probably only tiptoeing to check if I was still alive. Once they finally get to me, they'll either deliver the coup de gras, or offer a helping hand on the off chance they weren't just trying to kill passersby. I'm praying for door number two here, but I'm honestly doubting it because I know of no monsters indigenous to this corner of the world that could have a head of hair as wondrous and awe inspiring as mine.

My hair is fine by the way. I now keep it clutched between my stomach and my right hand while most of it rests on my arm.

In my line of sight, and beyond the foggy blur of pain which filled my eyes, I see leaves being brushed aside and grass being pressed down by an invisible weight. The foliage was disturbed in small patches, each time a patch of grass closer to me would be flattened under this unseeable force, staying in synch with the footsteps of the predator which hunted me. They were footsteps, the footsteps of an invisible hunter.

I kept my eyes focused solely on the steps coming towards me, but they soon vanished after stepping out of my field of sight. They had walked to my feet, possibly noticing my consciousness. They had me wounded with my face to the grass, yet these hunters remained so wary of me even in my pitiful condition. Why? Were they just that cautious? They shot me in the back from far enough to warrant using laser sights, so why don't they just paint the forest floor with my brains now and save time?

Then it came to me, a joyous notion: "Mayhaps I not be the one whom they seek." Said a strange little voice inside my head, the sound of his voice a mix of terror, uncertainty, and hope.

I felt something catch me at the back of my collar. In an instant I was in the air, choking as the front of my shirt met my throat. "Gah!" I gagged.

Wincing now, I tried to catch sight of the creature holding me up, but all I saw was the vague outline of a body made from distorted air, not dissimilar to the hot air radiating off of a dark colored vehicle on the hottest day of the summertime. From behind, it held me high above the ground.

Two other such bodies surrounded me, taking a good view of the day's catch. I watched them as their bodies took on more definite shapes and colors. Their bodies were lightly armored with their torsos and the better portions of their thighs exposed. Heavy plates covered the areas of their breasts and loins, and heavy epaulet type guards with small mounted cannons fixed to their left shoulders, and heavy looking braces on each forearm. The masks they wore were what distinguished them the most, however. Rear peaked masks with a slight bulge where their craniums rested. Box-shaped snouts protected their faces, and their eyes were guarded by beveled lenses so thick and black that not even the vague shape of the eyes which they guarded could be seen through them. Braided black locks of hair draped from their heads, but while I say those are hair, I am not sure of that by just looking at them.

"–––-–––" The creature holding me up by my shirt began producing a series of clicks and odd growling sounds, and when it ceased the two who had been observing me from the front did the same. Apparently they were communicating with each other in a tongue I could not comprehend.

I observed them as best I could while they spoke. I looked for an opening for me to escape, or a weakness I could exploit, but they were all much bigger than I, standing at least seven feet. I looked at their builds, a fine mix of muscle and fat with more definition in their exposed abdominals than was average. I looked at the curvature of their form, the proportions of their bodies, and the width of their hips, and I came to realize that the creatures which now surrounded me were all women. Amazonian hunters left over from Leanbox's dark ages. Their equipment was modern, and their tactics superb, but these women were not just well armed mercs with the intent to kick my ass and steal my stuff. These women were predators.

Thinking quickly, "You ladies wouldn't happen to be related to the chap who fought Schwarzenegger by any chance?"

Without hesitation, one of them punched me in the stomach, and I fell unconscious.

And that was the first time I had lost consciousness that day.

* * *

When I came to, my arms were bound behind my back, and I was made to sit on my legs in seiza. Incidentally, both my legs had become numb while I was a sleep.

My waking sight was of two predators like those whom I'd encountered previously watching over me, but my surroundings were different from where I had been before. The ceiling was of a tent made of sewn together animal hides held up by sticks and rocks. Hardly befitting warriors familiar to such advanced weaponry. Upon noticing my regaining consciousness, my two watchwomen conversed with each other in their language of clicks and growls. I'm guessing that whatever they were saying, it had to do with me because I was obviously the most important piece in the room.

One of the two left through a slip in the tent's hide while her other kept her sights on me. I considered trying to talk to her, but that idea didn't turn out so well for me last time.

Eventually and after maybe seven minutes of unblinking eye contact with my guard, another predator woman appeared, though this one was different from the one who had left earlier. Her armor was a bit more weathered with a few more notches and scratches into her mask than the other, probably less vetted predators.

She pointed at me with an index finger. "Stand." She commanded in a guttural tone which could only just barely carry the syllables of one word.

I moved my legs and tried to stand, but my legs were still asleep, and I fell to my face with a thud.

Unimpressed with my blunder, the older predator grabbed me by the back of my collar, which made me think that she had been the one to hold me up earlier. With no need of my input, the older predator dragged me away with my sandals leaving grooves in the dirt as she did.

We passed other tents as she made our way through the clearing, passing many other tents on the path, some equally unfitting for such a presumably advanced society and some were even less fitting. To my surprise, there were only a handful of the women here. I understood predator clans such as these would usually only send out their hunters out alone, but upon meeting three earlier I assumed that this clan would be especially large. Their tents were shabby, no trophies were displayed, and there were no men in sight. Men don't usually play large roles in the society of these clans, but every now and again some unlucky bloke would run afoul of a boss monster just a little too difficult for them only to be saved by a predator clanswoman who would keep them indebted for the remainder of their lives as trophy husbands and personal sperm banks. Yet, I saw maybe twenty hunters to this clan, and not one of them kept with them a mate.

Finally, I was brought before a woman whom I could rightly assume was the clan elder, draped in tattered brown robes rather than armor, yet still wearing the masks of the hunter, though hers was notably more ornate as it was made of what I thought to be solid gold, rather than whatever dull material the younger predators used in their masks.

My escort, who seemed to own little patience, returned me to seiza and made me to bow before the elder. Once I had been given permission to show my face, I was treated to a story that I had never asked for, and while the veteran predator who had carried me here spoke in a very rough but intelligible common tongue, the elder was almost completely incomprehensible. I could give you her words, but for the sake of everyone's patience I shall paraphrase the story she told.

She was the leader and eldest predator of Jungle Hunter clan, which actually dwelled within a forest rather than a jungle. She had been the strongest and most skilled hunter of her time, and with her long history she had led her clan for generations. After countless years of fighting off other neighboring predator clans, the Jungle Hunters had become the dominant force in the region. They had amassed the best fighters, the most valuable trophies, and the finest mates which made me a little worried for my sake.

Despite her peoples' dominance, all they had was lost when they took in a warrior the elder referred to exclusively as "The Abomination". While the inclusion of outsiders into predator clans is rare, it is not unheard of. If a warrior has proven themselves in battle against a tough enemy, predator clans have been known to take such warriors into their society as hunters. However, the Abomination did not accept the Jungle Hunters' culture as her own, rejecting it, violently. After murdering some of the clan's best warriors in cold blood, the Abomination had been marked for death.

One by one the Jungle Hunter warriors were slain in battle against the Abomination, and two such warriors would even defect to join her in her personal quest to eradicate the clan to which they had been born. These traitors were branded Bad Bloods by their clan, and also marked for death. With these traitors, the Abomination drove the Jungle Hunter clan from their territory into the forest. Homes destroyed, the children slaughtered, and countless warriors fell to the Abomination's superior force.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked her, wanting answers without offending those who could blast the head off my shoulders.

Pointing at my face, the elder told me. "She claiming [sic] you…" in a tone of voice most foreboding.

I knew not what the elder did, though she looked almost as if to see through me, see passed me, see beyond me. There was an otherness to the elder, whose eyes laid behind a mask of gold. She was as an idol, and the women of her clan looked to her as one would a goddess in any of our four great nations. So when from nowhere a fiery blast of plasma flew through the air to the elder's masked face and exploded her head to pain her brains across the ground, pandemonium ensued.

With no time to react to their leader's sudden death, the clanswomen prepared for battle. Tents in which the predators called their homes exploded with deafening sound. Bolts of plasma seemed to fly in every direction, taking out hunter after hunter. The Jungle Hunters' numbers dwindled to the single digits before my eyes.

The veteran clanswoman who had brought me could not have had much more of an idea of what was happening than I did. Composed as she was, two serrated blades extended from the module on her right forearm. Holding her arms wide, she seemed to call for her attackers to face her head on as to obey some archaic honor code.

The attackers, whomever they were, did not entertain this notion, as evident when a plasma bolt struck her head from behind and sent her flying to her face four feet away.

With the veteran down, I looked around as I would probably be the next to die. All that surrounded me were corpses and the exploded remains of the Jungle Hunter tribe's homes.

I heard footsteps again, just as I had heard in the forest when met by the Jungle Hunters earlier today. These footsteps were heavier, and no attempt was made to mask their sound.

And then I was struck….

And that was the second time I had lost consciousness that day.

* * *

I've a black crater of burned skin just to the left of my spine and below the ribs, of which I think a few are broken. My upper lip was split right at the center of the vermilion boarder where my rose-colored upper lip met the fineness of the rest of my face. That face of mine was probably scuffed and scratched and caked with bits of dirt, but that couldn't have affected my looks much, considering where I am now.

Where am I now, even? I don't know for certain, but what I do know is that I lie on my back with my hands tied and knotted behind me. It is night time now, and the stars are hidden behind a black sheet of dusky clouds. My vision is slightly hampered as my right eye can't seem to open.

I can only hope that that will clear up.

With my functioning eye, I look to my left and stare straight into the hollow eyes of the last face I saw before I blacked out. Almost identical to those of the Jungle Hunter tribe whom I had encountered previously, though sleeker and more streamlined in its design, the most noticeable difference between this mask and the ones which the Jungle Hunters wore was the very large jaw bone grafted onto the front of the mask.

This being the first thing I saw, I panicked, but as tired and as beaten as I was I couldn't manage more than an internal scream and the dilation of my left pupil.

"Oh?" The rustling of my awakening caught someone's attention. Quiet as I was, it must have been someone incredibly perceptive. "Oh, you're awake. That's a relief."

Next was the faint sound of a body wading through water. With people, the sound is usually louder, causing more of a disturbance, but it was as if they were a large fish making its way to the water's edge.

What was left of my vision had been obstructed for the most part by this ghoulish mask laid just to the front of my face, and even that tucked away in shadow. My only light source was what little moonlight fluttered down to earth from between the dark clouds of nighttime.

The mask's metal did not reflect light well, which made sense considering its purpose. I stared passed the eyes of the empty black mask, inside them was a hollow darkness which seemed to want to suck me in and rip the warmth of life out from my flesh. In this cloudy and dusky night, that darkness seemed to extend out into the world from the eyes and beneath the jaw, tainting my surroundings with this foreboding sense of hostility which felt to swallow me whole.

Another shadow appeared to further darken this blackest of blacks, stretching over it until even the mask itself was devoured by the abyss. This darkness was pitch and unchallenged in its totality, but then a white light in the shape of a human hand reached over the dark mask, grabbing hold of it by the jawbone at its base. This whiteness did not extend to fight back the black of night, or radiate its light onto the darkened mask. This light was separate from the shadow, and also from the rest of the world. Selfishly this white kept its light to itself in the darkness where it alone stood out over a world engulfed by complete and total grim.

The hand was of a woman, one whose whole body owned this light. A light which even the grass which touched her feet was not graced by.

Kneeling in front of me with her eyes locked on my pitiful form, only she could have been speaking to me; no one else was here that I could see in this dark.

Totally nude, her body was wet from head to toe, though she somehow appeared to own softness of her body rather than water's slickness. Her bosom was little more than two dots of red on mounds smaller than the palms of my hands, though her body's shape curved widely towards her buttocks and hips, though not in away unappealing, and even at her kneeling height I could see that she dwarfed me and possibly even Lamy, whose arachnid legs offered her a head over most full grown men in height. Her maiden gates were shut tight as if they had never before been so much as brushed against; I felt as if I were sullying them by having even caught a glance of them from the corner of my eye.

Her eyes were like aquamarine stones on sheets of Lowee's purest snow. Her wet pink hair stuck to her body like the ink of a tattoo, yet somehow that pink seemed perfectly fit to be her flesh. The lustrous sheen of her hair was like a golden pearlescence against the light, yet only she was alight in this pitch darkness. Still, the gradient of her hair of pink and gold move subtly along with her.

She was beautiful. She was the most traditionally beautiful woman I had ever laid eyes upon…, yet my brain lurched. Her presence was pain, like fire on my skin, and with every centimeter closer she came I could feel myself descending further and further down, down into the depths of the planet, into the depths of the inferno where the abyss's scorching heat teased my skin in the moments before I would be engulfed by the Incendium Gehennae.

"What are you?" I asked her, my every breath like swallowing a ball of fire.

"Not what, who, and I've been called many names." She told me. "Tempter, Destroyer, Pillager, and Abomination. Predator, Berserker, Monster, Killer, and Murderer. Really, I'm not very well liked." Her tone of voice shifted from solemn to chipper with an audible pop. "I bet you're wondering why you're here, or how you got here, but that's really a question for science, isn't it?"

My throat and the rest of my body was on fire. I couldn't speak, I couldn't move, I couldn't even blink. All I could do was scream internally the same words over and over. "Get away! Get away!" My mind lurched, why was it that this visually stunning and maidenly pure creature repulsed my senses to even be so close to her? I could not answer that for certain, but my mind was too full of terror and disgust to even bother with such frivolities.

"Hmm?" She looked at me curiously as would a child a sick animal. "Oh, right! You asked me my name, didn't you?" She paused, perhaps expecting me to answer. "Well…, Épopée sounds right, but you can call me anything. Everyone else does."

Could she be the one? The Abomination of which the Jungle Hunter Elder told me? This woman, whose ethereal beauty set my senses ablaze?

"What are you?" I forced out the same question, and throat was in no less agony now than when I asked her a moment ago.

She did not immediately reply, instead eyeing me with distant and half open eyes that could skewer my skull from a thousand miles' distance.

"You spoke with that Elder from the Jungle Hunters, didn't she tell you?" She said, sighing heavily afterward. "They called me an Abomination. They hated me because of the blood in my veins, they ostracized and abused me, and then I proved to them who was strongest."

"You wiped them out." I so insolently said.

"I gave them back everything they gave me." Her brow began to furrow, and her glare intensified.

"You killed them." I spoke up, as if my hands were not tied behind my back. "You're cold blooded…."

And like that her facade of ethereal beauty vanished. Still the lone light in the darkness, she grabbed me by my neck lifting me up into the air with but the need of one arm's strength. Her eyes met mine with more hate than I have ever before known was possible of mortal beings to exude.

"My blood will melt your bones!" Scowling first, the Abomination's face split from beneath her nose to the tip of her chin. Her mouth, perfectly bisected, opened to four different directions. Her face opened to reveal the most nightmarish visage I've seen to date. Her human mouth laid at the center of her now exposed lower face, the flesh of which glowed a sickening fluorescent green. Following the quartering of her lips, her human mouth opened so that a second mouth extended out from her throat and out her mouth. This second mouth jutted out far beyond her teeth, stopping just shy of my face, chomping at the air in front of my functioning eye. She roared loud and scratchily, shooting forth drops of saliva at my face with enough force to concuss a newborn. Her fluids came into contact with my skin, irritating every pore on my skin unfortunate enough to come into contact with it.

I'll be honest, Private Johnson stands at a taller and firmer attention now than when this Abomination met me with naught but the droplets of lake water on her for clothes.

Relinquishing her hold on my neck, I fell to the ground with only the seat of my pants to break my fall. I could hear and feel the cracking of my tail bone as my ass hits the dirt, and I fall to my back again after.

"You know," the Abomination started talking again, her face having returned to normal in the time it took for me to crack my ass on the dirt. "I was thinking about killing you, but I just remembered that I've never had a boyfriend once in my life."

I don't like the way she sounded when she said that….

"I didn't always go around killing the Jungle Hunters, you know. My father was one of the well-to-do folk in Lowee, and he always kept me cloistered and away from the 'grubby mitts of chromosomers XY' as he put it, so my school years were incorruptibly chaste. Even if he did let me associate with boys, I doubt any of them would pay me mind because it was Lowee, and 6'7" girls were never so popular there." Her words steadily became less comprehensible the longer she went on, and the light of her eyes was a madder red. Again her hand grabbed hold of my neck, though this time she would pin me to the ground by my throat, rather than suspend me. "I'm seven foot eight and thirteen over twenty five inches tall now, that's 235.0008cm exactly. Two hundred thirty-five, and eight ten thousandths centimeters. Two. Three. Five. Decimal Point. Zero. Zero. Zero. Eight. And I'm an A-cup, too. That means I'm too tall for Lowee, too flat for Leanbox, too honest for Lastation, and not crazy enough for Planeptune."

That last one was certainly debatable, but not by me as this abominable woman straddled my prone abdomen and clasped her right hand around my neck to join her left in choking me to death.

"There's a lot that these predator clans do that I think is batty, but the way they catch their men is something I can get behind. Find a mate in the woods, and make him yours." The pressure exerted on my neck had me gasping for air. Saliva dripped out the corners of my mouth as I suffocated. My already impaired vision slowly surrendered to darkness as my consciousness faded, but the unmistakable madness in her eyes was clear as day. Her heaving bosom rose and fell with lightning rapidity, and her blue irises became more defined against the bloodshot whites of her eyes. Her voice was bordering its breaking point, somewhere between total composure and the unintelligible hashing out of verbiage. "You. You're mine." She informed me. "I'm inexperienced, so please treat me well."

And I wish that had been the third time I lost consciousness that day.

* * *

"I hope Lamy and Boomslang are alright."


End file.
